


contigo

by Jade_Sabre



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Anxiety, F/M, Fraternization, In Media Res, Mutual Pining, Requited Pining, To the Max
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27812917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Sabre/pseuds/Jade_Sabre
Summary: Tuchanka in the morning, the Citadel in the afternoon, and now he's in the hanger bay and his shirt's on Deck One.  A moment of respite.
Relationships: Female Shepard/James Vega
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	contigo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fourthage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourthage/gifts).



> first note: this is rated G but there is some Language, because Marines.
> 
> second note: "Jade," you might be saying, "since what when who what is happening?"
> 
> dear reader, my friend fourthage over on Tumblr has a history of doing giveaways, and I have a history of writing fic for them, and so I felt a need to continue the trend. Hopefully she won't mistake this one for Shakarian, right? (I KID I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.)
> 
> this is very much In Media Res and I might post other in-game scenes for them to give more context. There's also a whole 'nother fic in my head about the six months of Elly Shepard's house arrest, and how these two desperately broken people find themselves fitting their jagged edges together into something smooth. At the time of this fic, Feelings Have Been Acknowledged and Exchanged, but after Mars there's a heated argument which ends with them both concluding that There's A Reason I Don't Get Involved With People I Work With and putting everything on hold for the sake of the mission.
> 
> this fic exists because, of course, as always, sometimes Things Fall Apart.
> 
> also I wrote the whole thing to the English version of Enrique's Bailando, because nothing says Shep/Vega like fun dancehall beats over melancholy minor harmonies, amirite? (it's okay if I'm alone in this.)
> 
> enjoy!

He’d had a shirt.  
  
He’d definitely had a shirt. He remembers taking it off after a few jumping jacks because it’d been pissing him off, coming just untucked enough for cold ship air to snake across his skin every time he left the floor. He’d taken it off and wadded it up and thrown it into the corner and it is no longer in the corner. Did he shove it out of the way when he went to do pushups? He rubs his face with his hand, looks again: no shirt. His locker’s on the crew deck along with the showers, and no way in hell is he riding the elevator shirtless. No way is he walking past Esteban shirtless. He’ll never live it down.  
  
But—and he gets down on his hands and knees, checks every crevice, the sweat drying cold on his body and taking his post-workout high with it—his shirt is gone.  
  
And it’s such a little problem, really, but it’s been a shit day on top of a shit week on top of a shit month and he just—to hell with it.  
  
He pings EDI on his omni-tool, just a message, doesn’t want to risk her saying anything aloud in the cockpit where Joker might hear and also never let him live it down. _EDI, did you see where I put my shirt?_  
  
The response, far faster than any organic could manage: _I’m afraid I don’t understand the question_.  
  
He rolls his eyes and hunkers down in the corner of his workout station, stretching his calves. _My shirt’s missing. Where did I put it?_  
  
This response a second longer in coming, practically a minute-long pause by EDI’s standards. _I am afraid you misunderstand my capabilities, Lieutenant Vega. I did not “see” where you put your shirt._  
  
He rolls his eyes. What is the _point_ of having an all-knowing AI running the ship if she doesn’t actually know what’s going on inside her? Inside it? Inside—and he was already fighting off a headache and this is making it worse. _Do you at least know where it is?_  
  
Another pause, even longer this time, and he switches to stretching his arms; probably five crew members are talking to her at— _I do not know if I am authorized to divulge that information_.  
  
What. The hell.  
  
 _Come again?_  
  
 _I could attempt to verify. Privacy protocols dictate—_  
  
 _Don’t_ , he types as fast as he can, his stomach sinking. _Don’t verify anything, forget I—_  
  
 _As you request_ , she replies, and he starts a sigh of relief that stops as another message scrolls by. _If I didn’t know any better, I’d suggest Deck One_.  
  
 _You bein’ sly, EDI?_ he writes back, hoping that if she hadn’t seen where he’d put his shirt she isn’t seeing him now, pulse skyrocketing, core temperature rising, temples pounding as he breaks out in a sweat.  
  
 _Merely devoting minimal processing power to the question, Lieutenant._  
  
He snorts, his fingers hesitating a moment over the haptic display, but he doesn’t want to leave her hanging—is that possible? questions for _another time_ —and finally types, _Thanks_.  
  
 _You’re welcome_ , comes the courteous reply, and with that he is on his own.  
  
Shit.  
  
He rubs his face again. No matter where it is, his shirt definitely isn’t _here_ , and no matter what he decides to do with that information, he will be shirtless in the elevator. Might as well suck it up.  
  
“Dude,” Steve says as he walks by, holding up his hand as if to block a bright light, “you gotta have a warning sign or something.”  
  
He flexes, though his heart isn’t in it. “Enjoying the gun show?” he asks with a half-grin.  
  
“Gross,” Steve calls after him, and he laughs, but the meager humor drains away as he hits the call button on the elevator and waits for it. The doors slide open; nobody’s there, so he steps inside. The doors slide shut.  
  
He takes a breath. Shower’s on Deck Three; his shirt’s on Deck One. Easy choice, if his head’s on straight.  
  
 _“Enough about me,” Steve said, wiping his eyes. “What about you, Vega? How’re you doing in affairs of the heart?”  
  
Not the first time a friend had asked the question; the first time he’d ever hesitated in answering, and even then it wasn’t intentional. He was going to say, “You know me, fancy free,” like he always did, but he hesitated and Steve crossed his arms, a strange look on his face. Strange, because he’d never seen it before, but its meaning became clear when he said, “You got a girl, Vega?”  
  
_He’d laughed then; he’s not laughing now. “Yeah, Esteban,” he says, blowing the words out with his breath as he hits the button for Deck One. He drops his head back and stares at the overhead. “I got a girl.”  
  
The doors slide open and he just stares at the passageway beyond them, the closed door opposite him, and then they start to slide shut and he awkwardly leaps through them, landing heavily on the deck. No way she didn’t hear that, but the door stays closed, the interface red, awaiting the passcode. He could ring, ask for permission to enter, pretend this was official business. Pretend he _has_ any business being here.  
  
To hell with it.  
  
He punches in the code—same as on Earth, but he barely has time to wonder if that’s on purpose, if she left it that way for him, and then the door’s open and she’s standing with her arms crossed on the upper deck staring at the fish tank, his shirt reaching almost to her knees, the sleeves at her elbows.  
  
She’s so beautiful she leaves him breathless; the sight is warm and homey and he—  
  
He says, cool and casual, “That’s hot.”  
  
She turns her head just enough for him to see her perfectly arched eyebrow, and then she wrinkles her nose and jerks her head towards the door. “Shower’s in there,” she says, and then she returns to staring at her fish. The blue light shimmers across her face, and he sees the glint of tear tracks on her cheeks.  
  
Shit.  
  
He heads for the shower, avoiding looking at anything else in the cabin; once in the bathroom he hesitates, but he doesn’t lock the door behind himself. He’s pretty sure she won’t come in, and if she does, well, that’s on her. The room itself is sparse and clinical, like all the other bathrooms on board, though the shower floor littered with an assortment of dark bottles whose contents smell—he sniffs cautiously—good, too floral for him, good, and that one must be her shampoo, because one whiff and he can see her combing her wet hair over her shoulder while complaining about something pointless.  
  
Doesn’t she have just regular old _soap_?  
  
He pokes around, finds a few hidden compartments, eventually stumbles upon what looks like a half-used bar of standard issue soap hiding under a pile of tampons. Who knows how long it’s been there or who used it last, but it’ll do, and he finally turns on the water and strips off the rest of his clothing, tossing it into the corner.  
  
The water’s hot and exhausting, like the last dregs of his adrenaline and endorphins are swirling down the drain. When was the last time he showered? After Tuchanka, probably, so…this morning, ship time? They’d spent a little time debriefing before heading to report to the Council, right, that had been—has he _slept_ since Tuchanka? There’d been the half-hour travel time to the Aralakh relay, then from the Widow relay to the Citadel, he must have been doing…something. He has vague recollections of eating and showering. Exchanging dead-eyed looks with Liara and Garrus, though Garrus’s had been…worse. He’d known Mordin the longest, with the exception of the commander; but they’d all gotten used to him hanging out in the medbay, chattering endlessly to himself. He’s avoided it since coming back aboard. A good death; a hard loss.  
  
And then the Council’s SOS had sounded—he’d been about to rack out, he remembers now, bunching up a hoodie for a pillow in his workout space in the shuttle bay, sure he wouldn’t be needed for all the talking bits—and they’d suited up again, his skin still showing the imprint of his armor, his trigger finger still sore. The hell with it; maybe he’ll just pass out here in the shower. What a _shit_ day.  
  
Not just for him.  
  
He presses his forehead into the shower wall and lets the water pound on his back, fruitlessly bouncing off the tension in his shoulders, his neck. His hands are balled into fists; he forcibly relaxes them, one finger at a time, before splaying his hands against the wall on either side of his head, stretching out his calves, his toes sliding along the slick shower floor. He turns the water hotter, until he can’t see for the steam.  
  
He’s listening to the water and the movie playing in his head, gunfire and screams and the high-pitched whine of a Nemesis’s scope honing in on him, and then he hears a voice. “There’s clothes on the desk,” she says, her voice not so distinct that she’s sticking her head through the door, but not so distant that the door isn’t open. “Just reach around the corner when you need them.”  
  
He hears the door slide shut. “Thanks,” he says to the wall, and then he sighs and reaches for the soap. He’d give a lot for one of those loofa things right now, something hard and rough that he could drag across his skin to distract him from the memory of her hands on his neck, the sight of her _wearing his shirt_ , the _hell_ , Shepard, they’d _talked_ about this, what the hell is he supposed to _do_ with that, let alone the fact that she’d somehow managed to steal it out from under his nose. He scrubs harder, stands under the water until the old childhood guilt drowns out all the other voices and memories— _don’t waste water, pendejo, that shit costs money_ —and he shuts it off.  
  
He takes a deep breath, steam filling his lungs, opening his sinuses, so he takes another deep sniff, shakes his head a bit; shakes it again, harder, because it’s funny to feel the drops of water flying from his head. He’s stalling. But what else is he supposed to do?  
  
Find a towel, probably.  
  
He’s steamed up the whole bathroom and so even though the towels are sealed in their hidden compartment they’re still a bit damp to the touch, and he flagrantly grabs three of them, one for his hair, one for his body, one to wrap around his waist while he considers that he probably should shave—best conditions he’s had for it in a while, fade could use a touch-up too. Somewhere in his scroungings he’d seen a razor, but no way to tell how old it was or what it had been used for. So probably not a good idea. Damn steamy in here, though. Shame not to.  
  
He stares at the blurry edges of his reflection in the fogged-over mirror. He is _stalling_.  
  
For half a second he imagines himself the kind of man who could saunter out in just a towel, bold enough to punish her for punishing him—but it’d be a hollow victory and he doesn’t want to hurt her and he’s also, might as well admit it, _shy_ , in general and also here, now, even knowing she’s wearing his shirt.  
  
But also especially knowing that, because that means she— _needs_ him, and most of the time he tries very hard not to think about that.  
  
He sighs and hangs his head once more, then edges over to the door, waits for it to open, reaches around and gropes with one hand until he lands upon what feels like a pile of clothing. He retreats to the far corner of the bathroom—standard-issue shirt, but this one’s clean and folded, and a pair of workout shorts, so at least he won’t be _completely_ commando, for what little good it will do him.  
  
He dresses. The shirt’s tight, like it hasn’t been through enough washes, and that’s…weird. The shorts, thankfully, are normal.  
  
He runs a hand over his still-damp hair, squares his shoulders, and leaves the bathroom behind.  
  
She’s still standing in front of the fish tank with her arms crossed; if it weren’t for the clothes, he wouldn’t know she’d moved from the spot. She’s backlit in blue light, her hair long and shimmering down her back, his shirt conveniently coming to mid-thigh, her feet bare, and he jerks his gaze back to a point just above her head and takes a deep breath and says, “Thanks.”  
  
She snorts, and for a moment her body curls in with the sound; and then she says, “I stole them a long time ago.”  
  
He leans against her desk, crosses his arms, ineffective measures at best, but at least he’s trying to stay away. No point in saying anything; he’s done his part in coming here.  
  
“Which I guess wasn’t that long ago,” she says, as if delivering a report to Anderson, her voice echoing faintly off the fish tank. “Whenever the first load of laundry was done. Snatched them mid-cycle and hung them up in here to finish drying. Thought it might…help.”  
  
He keeps his arms crossed, his voice flat. “Did it?”  
  
“No,” she says. “They just smell like standard-issue laundry. That doesn’t help.”  
  
A beat. The silence isn’t _un_ comfortable, but it’s not safe, either. “You seem to have managed,” he says.  
  
She laughs at that, once, hard and rueful, and her arms drop to her sides. “I have,” she says.  
  
“So what changed?” he asks, too quickly, damn it, so much for detachment.  
  
She lifts one hand, touches the fish tank, her fingers dancing lightly across the noses of a few curious fish that come to investigate. She leans forward; he imagines her nose touching the glass and finds himself smiling fondly like an idiot. “Well,” she says, “it was a long day.”  
  
“No shit,” he says, and she finally turns her head towards him, just enough for her hair to swing a bit, for him to see her ear, to imagine the cut of her dark eyes.  
  
“‘No shit,’ he says,” she says, elitist and mocking in a way he knows all too well.  
  
“Don’t,” he warns, drawing the line in the sand, knowing she’s protecting herself, wishing he was smart enough to do the same. “I’m right here.”  
  
“You shouldn’t be,” she says, and her hand, her shoulders, her head all drop.  
  
“Says the woman who stole my shirt,” he says, and while she doesn’t _move_ she…lifts, a little, and so he keeps going. “I had to walk past Cortez. I’m not living that down for at least a week.” She laughs again, raises her head, still doesn’t look at him. “So,” he says, and her shoulders stiffen, good, “we doing this or not?”  
  
“Doing—”  
  
“Shepard,” he says.  
  
“Sorry,” she says, and she turns all the way around, leans against the fish tank with her hands hidden behind her. “I’d really rather not.”  
  
“Your outfit says otherwise,” he says, and she lifts an eyebrow and before she can derail the conversation he says, “Fine, I’ll start. Cured the genophage this morning, yeah?”  
  
“Yeah,” she says, and the corner of her mouth quirks for a moment, as if she’d forgotten. “That wasn’t so bad.”  
  
“Lost Mordin.”  
  
“Yeah,” she says, and she blows out a breath, puts her fingertips to her temples and rotates her wrists towards the overhead. “Shouldn’t have been a surprise, with the way everything had gone to hell and come back, but still—I don’t know what I thought.” Her fingers slide up her skin, flying free for a moment before dropping back to her sides. “I never think I’m going to make it out, so I don’t know why I bother thinking that makes everyone else…safe.”  
  
“Because you’re going to keep the rest of us safe, duh,” he says, and she drops her chin and looks up at him from under her brow, not quite scowling. “That’s the whole gig, right? You keep us all safe and die in the process and that makes it okay?”  
  
“I don’t want to die,” she says, unsteadily, and he digs his fingernails into his palms. “I’m not—”  
  
“Is this the part where I remind you that you have a squad?” he asks, a little angry about it, and the anger is mostly the part of him that’s terrified whenever she starts talking about self-sacrifice like she thinks it’s inevitable. “’Cause I’m pretty sure you’re the one who told me—”  
  
“We watch each others’ backs and we all get out alive,” she finishes.  
  
“Yourself included,” he says.  
  
“It’s not conscious,” she says.  
  
“It’ll still get you killed.”  
  
She presses her eyes shut, her hands disappearing behind her back again. “It can’t just be my job to order people around and send them to their deaths,” she says. “I _owe_ it to them to—try harder or—but it doesn’t matter, does it, when Mordin just up and does it himself? Because there comes a point when there’s no one else and you have to—”  
  
“Yeah,” he says, swallowing hard against the rising terror in his chest, and this is why they _don’t do this_. He has to trust she wants to get out of there, that she’s trying to get out of there, that she’s not running in like a martyr every single damn time, that she hides in the back because it’s strategic, not because she’s waiting to take the knife at their six. He has to trust she’s ordering him forward or away because it’s the best choice, not just the one that keeps him safe. He has to _follow orders_ and not think about who’s issuing them and what neuroses are running through her too-intelligent mind. And she has to trust that he’ll follow them, and that he understands if she sends him to his death. “Yeah, well, that’s why you’ve got a squad with you. We back you up. You back us up. Nobody else goes around pulling stunts like that.”  
  
“Thane did,” she said, _Thane_ , that was the name she’d hissed amidst the string of profanity leaving her lips as they hustled into the C-Sec shuttle, leaving a drell gasping for breath and bleeding out on the sidewalk. “ _Fuck_ ,” she says, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes.  
  
“Elly,” he says, his voice too soft for his own good.  
  
She tears her hands away from her eyes, smashes fists into the fish tank, splayed against it and heaving for breath. “It’s not even—I can deal with _losing_ people, it happens, I’ve been damn lucky so far and Thane’s been dying since before I met him, if he wants to go out in a blaze of glory—or at least _doing something_ —God—knows that’s what he wanted, didn’t want to die drowning in a hospital, that’s _fine_ , it’s _fine_ , if Mordin had to go up in flames that’s—that’s what _happened_ , it’s not even—I can fucking _handle it_.”  
  
“I can tell,” he says dryly, his arms pulling tight around himself.  
  
She laughs and there’s snot in the sound. “Because it’s not— _that_. I can spin in existential circles about the meaning of duty all day long and spiral into anxiety about destiny and hold it together, I mean, shit, that’s just life. But that _asshole_ —”  
  
“Which one?”  
  
“Thane,” and she says his name again, desperate and pissed and dragging it into some personal hell, “he—he—” She gulps down a breath, tilting her head to the overhead, and she’s definitely crying and he isn’t going to last much longer, is coming apart at the seams, no longer resisting so much as not sure what he wants to do first. “That _asshole_ ,” and her eyes meet his, full of tears, and he’s coming for her come hell or high water, “he _prayed_ for me, James.”  
  
And then his arms are around her and she’s sobbing into his clean too-tight shirt, her hands fisting in the fabric, and she is _in his arms_. He’s _holding_ her, and suddenly he’s choking on air, blinking up to the overhead as he tries to remember how to— _breathe_ , in and out, simple, stupid, but he can’t do it right, feels like he’s wheezing and his chest is tight and maybe he’s dying or maybe he’s just panicking. He _is_ panicking, and the thought clears his head enough to take a breath, and then another; he’s holding her and he shouldn’t, but he is. And he’s holding her because she’s crying, only worse than that, making noises he hasn’t heard from her before, echoes of screams he mostly tries to forget. Shit.   
  
He takes another breath and grounds himself: the ripple of blue light across her hair; the subtle smell of her shampoo, something green and clean and fresh without being fruity; the taste of his own spit in his dry mouth. The scratchy-smooth feeling of standard-issue cotton under his hands; the fragile steel of her shoulders shaking under that; her knuckles, digging through his shirt to press into his abs; the hot-wet stickiness of his shirt against his skin where she’s crying into it, tears and snot and her breath all mixing together. And the endless sound of one scream shattered in her throat, catching and breaking and forcing itself out in bursts of pain.  
  
His arms tighten with every sound she makes, his fingers digging into her shoulders in turn, and he’s vaguely aware that he’s talking some kind of nonsense—shushing her, soothing her, or trying to, anyway. Doesn’t seem to be working too well, but he doesn’t know what else to do.  
  
And then suddenly she turns her head away from his chest and says, “ _Ow_ ,” and he releases her immediately and she doubles over, sucking down air before looking up at him, one hand on her side, “I think you cracked my rib.”  
  
“Oh,” he says stupidly, spreading his hands wide and flexing his fingers without thinking about it, “I—”  
  
“Not literally,” she says, and he just stares at her as she straightens, eyes red and still spilling tears, hair stuck to her cheeks, nose shining, and he’s seen her pretty wrecked before but this is—different. Maybe because before she was always getting trashed to avoid feeling anything, and this is—nothing _but_ feeling. She might as well be bleeding her heart all over him, and he can’t help… _feeling_ , too. “But ow.”  
  
“Sorry,” he says, his voice doing some kind of weird wobble and her eyes dart to meet his and she inhales sharply, even as fresh tears spill out of her eyes.  
  
“I mean,” she says, and she takes a step towards him and he keeps his arms out, watches her take another deep trembling breath and another step towards him until she’s leaning against him again, turning her head to rest her cheek against his chest on a dry patch of shirt, “you didn’t have to…”  
  
Very slowly, almost as if he’s watching himself do it, he brings his arms back around her until his hands are on her shoulders again and he feels her shudder, pulls her closer until she’s practically standing on his feet. The dry patch under her cheek is rapidly getting soaked, and he says, “Better?”  
  
She sighs and turns her face into his chest again. “It’s so stupid,” she says, and he feels her lips moving as she speaks and presses his lips together instinctively. “It’s so _stupid_ but he—sought absolution for me, like it’s something you can just ask for in advance, like he knew I’d need it. And I _do_ , obviously,” and she laughs and hiccups and he instinctively strokes her hair and that’s…nice, very nice, he wants to bunch it up in his hands and run his fingers through it and his brow furrows as he tries to concentrate on what she’s saying. “But I also just feel like I’m running one step ahead of the flames and the longer I’m ahead the more people I’ll lose to them and then it’ll be my turn and what’s the point of running if we’re all just going to die anyway? Or what’s the point of being afraid if it won’t be my turn until it’s my turn? I don’t believe in fate, James,” she says, and he feels her breath catch when she says his name, feels the unconscious press of her lips against his shirt, and well, at least he’s not alone in the struggle. “I don’t think people are destined to anything, other than eternal life. I believe we’re called and I believe we have choices, but I’m terrified I’m the exception to the rule.”  
  
“Seems unlikely,” he comments, for lack of anything else to say.  
  
“No shit,” she says. “But most people who get spaced don’t wake up to talk about it. So if we’re talking about exceptions, I think I’m already well down that path.”  
  
He can’t say anything she hasn’t already thought through and dismissed at speeds faster than he could ever hope to match. He knows that, but he has to say _something_. “Doesn’t mean we’re all doomed to being harvested.”  
  
“No, but that doesn’t mean I get to live to see the victory,” she says. “Sometimes it feels easier to just accept it, assume I’m going to go out in a blaze of self-sacrificial glory and die alone and so I might as well keep going until it happens.”  
  
“No,” he finds himself saying, his fingers tangling in her hair, pulling her head back to look up at him, “no, you’re not—”  
  
“But then something like today happens,” she says, cutting him off, her eyes wide and her lower lip trembling and he feels like the deck is about to collapse under his feet, “and Mordin goes out in the blaze of self-sacrificial glory and dies alone and Thane dies on his terms and spends his last breath praying for me and part of me is afraid that I’m wrong.”  
  
There’s a smart-aleck reply to make to that, somewhere, but before he can find it she says, “Because what if—because I’ve already died once, so why in space would I get to survive this? Why should I,” and she reaches up a hand and rests it on his cheek, runs her fingers across his skin, and he—is—holding on, “get to find out what’s on the other side? What happens _after_? What kind of—grace—”  
  
Her fingers curl against his cheek and she’s crying into his shirt again and with his free hand he covers hers before it can go anywhere, flattens his hand over hers until her fingers are interlaced with his, their hands clenched together, and he’s holding on to _her_. She might be dragging him down with her, drowning his senses in her suffering, but at least they’re going down together.  
  
Literally, he realizes, as he sinks to the deck and she pulls herself into his lap, buries her face in his skin right above the collar of his shirt, her head tucked under his chin, and all of his willpower goes into keeping arms around her, a hand on her shoulder, another on her back, cradling her and waiting. And waiting, as she settles against him, as her tears slide down his skin and into his shirt, and her snot too, probably, he thinks, terrified and desperate, snot, gross, she’s using his shirt as a Kleenex, man, that’s not cool.  
  
And then she turns her head a little, so that her nose is free, and says in a clogged voice, “I believe in a God who loves me.”  
  
“Yeah,” he says, because she does and he’s not convinced she’s wrong.  
  
“And you,” she says, and he snorts a little, “and everyone else, and me being here and Thane being incinerated in a Citadel crematorium doesn’t mean he loves either of us any more or any less. Or she, I guess, if you want to go with drell pronouns.”  
  
“She?” he says, half-curious, half-focused on his fingers splayed across her back and the play of muscle and bone beneath them.  
  
“Thane called her Kalahira,” she says, “and an omniscient God wouldn’t be worth their salt if they couldn’t figure out we’re talking about the same damn thing.” She’s quiet for a moment, aside from incidental sniffs, and he gives in and rests his cheek on her hair. It still smells good. “It’s grace, that’s all,” she says finally. “Hope. But I sure as hell can’t see my way to it from here. Just gotta…know it’s there. Trust,” she says, with a weak laugh. “My strong point.”  
  
“You’re not alone,” he says, another stupid thing she’s already told herself, probably.  
  
But she pulls away from him, just enough to tilt her head to look up at him, and her eyes roam his face thoughtfully and all he can think is _here_ and _in his arms_ and _hold on_. “No,” she says, and then she seems to realize her lips are dangerously close to his chin and ducks beneath it again. His chest tightens. “You got anything you want to talk about?”  
  
“I love you,” he says, because he is an _idiot_ , and she buries her face in the crook of his neck, her shoulders shaking, but he thinks this time she’s laughing. “This sucks.”  
  
This time she leans far enough away that his hand on her back in the only thing keeping her from falling over. She’s definitely laughing, though not _at_ him, and the sadness in her smile echoes the pain in his chest.  
  
“No,” she says, “shit.” One of her hands fists itself in his shirt again; the other reaches and touches his cheek, this time roaming his face, his ear, his hair. His eyes fall half-closed as she dances her fingers down his nose, skips to his chin, runs back along his cheek. “You look,” she says, “ _so_ good.”  
  
“You’re wearing my _shirt_ ,” he complains, blinking as she continues her wanderings.  
  
“I am,” she says, and she sounds very apologetic. “You smell good, too.”  
  
“It’s a good thing you hang in the back,” he says, and now he’s just babbling nonsense, “because I don’t think I could concentrate if I had to follow your ass around.”  
  
She laughs, still a little snotty, and the sound is absolute comfort, somewhere between the crash of the waves on the beach and the hazy rhythm of a summer song. “It’s a pretty good one.”  
  
“It’s fantastic,” he says, keeping his hands well away from it. “You’re absolutely gorgeous, have I told you that lately?”  
  
“Music to my ears,” she says, and now her hand’s traveling over his shoulder, apparently fascinated by the curves of his muscles, though when he flexes the expression on her face turns analytical. “You’re not so bad yourself. I mean, I’ve known some meatheads in my time,” and he rolls his eyes, “but you’re particularly impressive in that department.”  
  
“Thanks,” he says, but it hurts, a little, being compared to any number of flings, and he hates feeling insecure but he’s sitting here with her in his arms and he doesn’t want to be anywhere else or think of anyone else and he’s _told_ her that, she _knows_ that and she’s joking about it anyway—  
  
“Oh,” she says, and he focuses on her again and she’s watching his face with a crease between her eyebrows, “you’re right, I’m not—”  
  
“It’s—” he starts to say, _fine_ , not like he doesn’t have a few skeletons in his closet, not that his skeletons are anything like this—  
  
“Don’t lie to me,” she says, and now her whole forehead’s wrinkled, “I’m _sorry_ , I don’t know what the hell I’m doing and I’m absolutely terrified of screwing it up and absolutely going to screw it up—”  
  
“That makes two of us,” he says.  
  
She laughs again and it’s sad again but the look in her eyes leaves him absolutely breathless, something helpless and desperate and deeply needy and not a little possessive that doesn’t so much echo something in his chest as roar right along with it.  
  
“You feel good,” she says abruptly, and now her hand’s dragging along his cheek and that’s—dangerous—“I love your stubble, have I told you that? I love your ridiculous haircut. I love your scars,” she says, running her thumb over the one that runs across his cheek, and without really thinking about it he finds himself trying to kiss her hand, though she evades him. “I love how hard you’ve fought for everything in your life. I love your stupid smart brain. I love—”  
  
“Shepard,” he says, trying to keep her at least at hand’s length away, but she’s pulled herself back into his lap and has both hands on his face now and he is going to _lose it_.  
  
“—saying your name, and I love being in your arms, and I love—”  
  
He drops his head into her shoulder, closes his eyes, turns until his lips are against her neck, and says, “If you don’t stop—”  
  
The abrupt silence fills with the sound of their breathing, shallow and hard, the feel of her pulse against his mouth, the taste of her right on the tip of his tongue, and if she doesn’t stop—“I love you,” she says quietly, and he winces, “and the only thing that scares me more than the thought of not finding out what happens _after_ is how much I want to, with you.” She swallows, and he feels that, too. “And only with you. And only if you’re there, too. James, I—”  
  
“So we survive,” he says, raising his head, looking her in the eye, because she’s right: with her, and only with her, and only if she’s there, too. The thought of anything else sends him right back to a batarian bar in Omega, with nothing to lose and no reason to win, and to chase it away he allows himself to brush her hair away from her face, tugging it free where it’s stuck to her cheeks, tucking it behind her ear. That she immediately lifts a hand to adjust it, tuck it properly, doesn’t matter; he’s moved onto her cheek, marveling at how huge and stupid his hand looks against her skin, his thumb dwarfing her eye as he runs it along her cheekbone.  
  
“How?” she asks, her eyes closed, holding herself very still in a way he also recognizes.  
  
He snorts. “You’re the one who’s Commander Shepard,” he says. “You tell me.”  
  
Her eyes still closed, she raises an eyebrow and says, “I did mention that I got spaced.”  
  
“And here you are,” he says, and something in him snaps, some part of him that wore a _Normandy_ remembrance pin for two years and mourned a woman he didn’t know crashing into the reality that he’s already lost her once and he didn’t even know what he was missing, and he pulls her against him, cradling her head with a hand, closing his eyes as her arms snake around him.  
  
He just holds her, and she just holds him, and they stay that way until his omni-tool dings and startles them apart. “Uh,” he says, twisting his wrist to check the notification as she shifts to rest her back against his chest, “apparently I’m on duty.”  
  
“Doing what?” she asks.  
  
“Armory,” he says, dropping his arms so they’re loosely around her. “Guard shift, usually—don’t you sign off on these things?”  
  
“No,” she says. “I mean maybe, but I don’t look at them, that’s the XO’s job.” He can hear the frown in her voice. “Do I have an XO?”  
  
“Don’t look at me,” he says. “Above my pay grade.”  
  
“Guess it’s a good thing we got Alenko back,” she says, and she sighs and shifts until she’s tilting her head back against his shoulder. “Though he outranks me, so I guess that makes him in charge.”  
  
“Does it?”  
  
“No,” she says, “but a girl can dream.”  
  
She doesn’t move to get off his lap, and so he takes the opportunity to run his fingers through her hair. She hums lazily, like she does when she’s reading a good book or eating a bar of chocolate, but this time he’s close enough that he feels it vibrate against his neck. Before he can stop himself he hums back, and next thing he knows he’s humming one of those brainless songs she’d played on loop for six months and she’s laughing, and then his omni-tool dings again.  
  
“I’m on duty,” he says, and she swipes open her omni-tool, bending over it when he tries to look over her shoulder, and abruptly his notification vanishes.  
  
“Not for another hour,” she says, and then she leans back against him and looks up at him and says, “Chess?”  
  
“I am never going to want to play chess with you,” he tells her, looking down at her, and she shifts along his shoulder until they’re cheek-to-cheek and then she hums again. Her skin is warm and still a little sticky, rough with dried salt, and he closes his eyes and breathes her in.  
  
“Checkers?” she murmurs.  
  
“No,” he retorts, though he keeps his voice low, feels a little shiver go through her shoulders and grins. He pitches his voice even lower and says, “No strategy games,” and she shivers again. “Now, if you want to play poker…”  
  
“Once was enough,” she says, her voice almost a sigh. “I know better than to bet against you.”  
  
“So no poker,” he says, and she snorts. “So where’s that leave us?”  
  
“Rummy,” she says with deep resignation, but her hands suddenly snare his, entwining their fingers and resting them against her stomach, and hey, he’s not complaining. “It’s always rummy with us.”  
  
“Gin?” he asks.  
  
“I’d better not,” she says, and it’s a dumb joke and he laughs anyway, turns his head enough to press his lips to her cheek, just once, and for a moment they’re both perfectly still, and for a moment it’s good enough to be forever.  
  
And then she stands up and drops his hands and he discovers he’s sore all over, groans a little as he braces himself to stand too. “Getting old on me, Vega?” she teases, and as he stands up he watches her watch him, lifting her chin in order to keep his gaze. “Why are you so _tall_?”  
  
He shrugs his shoulders, rolls them, stretches his neck. “Genetics,” he says, and she snorts and takes his hand and leads him to the couch. He sits and tries to fit his legs under the table while she digs a deck of cards out of her desk—a real deck of cards, and he wonders if she’d left them here before, or if she’d brought the ones from her house arrest, or if these are new, and then she’s sliding in opposite him and he gives up on the table and stretches his legs out on the seat next to him. She snickers a little and deals their cards, and he’s looking at a pretty shitty hand, all mismatched numbers and suits. “You sure you shuffled these?”  
  
She bats her eyes at him, even as she tosses the deck from one hand to another, the cards flying effortlessly between her palms. “Sure did,” she says, and lays her hand on the table: four kings, three queens, and a nine-ten-jack-of-hearts straight. “Rummy.”  
  
“Gimme those,” he says, and she laughs and hands them over as if she hasn’t a care in the galaxy.  
  
And for an hour they play, and it’s like they’re back on Earth, sitting on the bench seat in front of the window, and so for an hour he just accepts it, forgets about everything but trying to maintain some dignity while she systematically destroys him at every game they play until he finally gets the better of her in freaking Go Fish, of all things, and it’s just _fun_. She works her way around the table, sliding along the seat until by the end she’s stretched out with her head in his lap, holding her cards over her face and batting his hand away when he tries to peek.  
  
“Look,” he says, as she keeps swatting at him, laughing behind her cards, “I’m about to play an eight, I just want to know what’s in your hand so I know what suit _not_ to call—”  
  
“You’ve got two cards left in your hand,” she says, and he’s ready this time, catches her hand and pins it between his legs so he can reach for her cards at his leisure. “I don’t know why you need to— _cheater_ —”  
  
“You dealt yourself a hand of hearts to start with and you know it,” he says, triumphantly prying the cards away from her face, revealing a scrunched-up expression even as she tries to bat at him with the cards themselves. “And now I do too.”  
  
“I’ve got… _a_ club,” she says, and it’s true, the lone black speck amidst all the red.  
  
“Well,” he says, laying down his eight, “it’s spades now,” and his omni-tool dings.  
  
She frees her hand and drags it over her face, sighing this time, as he checks the notification. “Duty calls—latrines?”  
  
She sighs again, a little more theatrically, and says, “There’s always a price.”  
  
She drops her hand from her face and looks up at him, and he looks down at her, watching the laughter leave her eyes, loving her as much as he can muster in the space of a moment as she drinks it in; and then that too fades, and she sits up and slides away, clears her throat, starts gathering the deck.  
  
He tightens his grip on his cards. It’s not fair. It’s not _fair_ , but at least they’re alive; at least they’re here, together; at least he has a job to do. Good work, and a good commander. There are worse things.  
  
She sighs and says, “Thanks for stopping by.”  
  
“No problem,” he says, trying to be as casual as she’s failing to be, and when she reaches for his cards he lets her take them, lets her slide them from his fingers, and he says, “Miss you.”  
  
She smiles a little. “Yeah,” she says, putting the cards back in their box. “You too.”  
  
For a moment they sit; he stares at the table, idly wonders who designed it, if they made it with Shepard in mind or if they were just short themselves; it’s scaled to her, in any case, no wonder he doesn’t fit. He’s got latrine duty, which just feels like a low blow. Scrubbing toilets, but at least it won’t take long, and afterwards he can shower again and sleep. A price, and a kindness.  
  
As if she’s thinking the same thing, she says, “Blessings, that’s all.” He turns his head just enough to see her; she’s still looking at the table, not quite frowning. “Always there, if you look for them. Just enough to see you through.” She smiles, small and fragile. “Just have to keep trusting, I guess.”  
  
“Yeah,” he says, though he doesn’t understand half of what goes through her head on the subject; but there’s a peace in there somewhere, or a path towards it, and he’ll walk it with her as far as he can. “Just gotta survive the next thing, and the next, right?”  
  
She glances at him, nods once, and to his surprise reaches out once more, briefly touches his cheek, and if he were a better man—“Yeah,” she says, and for a moment he sees it again in her eyes, all the love she can muster, and all the fear right alongside it. “See you on the other side.”  
  
He can’t manage much more than a half-smile, a swallow, a nod, and then thankfully she drops her hand, squares her shoulders, and shakes her head. She stands and he automatically follows suit, though at first he tries to swing his legs back under the table and bangs his knees in the process. Wincing, he stands up, and when he meets her gaze there’s a trace of amusement around her eyes; but it’s aloof, professional, and he straightens beneath it.  
  
“Well, Lieutenant,” she says, and she is still wearing his shirt, and the one he’s wearing now is absolutely disgusting, and he sees her realize this a half-second after he does; but she doesn’t waver, and he’s on his own. Latrine duty; no point in changing his shirt, he can always blame it on somebody having the shits—somebody always has the shits. “Anything else?”  
  
He shakes his head. “No, ma’am,” he says.  
  
“All right,” she says. “Dismissed.”  
  
“Commander,” he says, saluting, and she returns it, and then she’s awkwardly behind him, heading for her desk as he heads for the door. Cleaning fumes give him a headache, and shouldn’t they have bots to do this? Has he ever had latrine duty before? Has he ever heard anyone else complaining about it? One of the privates, maybe, or maybe Traynor had said something about that retrofit not being finished yet. That sounds right. He hasn’t scrubbed a toilet since Basic. Perfect ending to a shit day, though.  
  
He hears the door slide open, feels the brush of stale air across his face; he steps through, and he doesn’t look back.


End file.
